Chase Center: Seven things you didn’t know about...

1of19Season ticket holder Tim Leahy, center, was surprised with the opportunity to install his new seats with an assist by Warriors legend Tim Hardaway, at the new Chase Arena which is still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The seats were the first installed at the arena, and the Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Photos by Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

2of19Constructions cranes surround the four Warriors NBA championship banners hanging on the outside at the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

3of19Season ticket holder Tim Leahy and his son Tyler take in the view from their new seats at the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility. Leahy was surprised by the Warriors with the offer to help install the seats.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

4of19L-R, Don Moffett, season ticket holder Tim Leahy, Warriors legend Tim Hardaway, and Warriors COO Rick Welts, pose for a photo inside the new Chase Arena where Leahy was able to help install his new seats while the arena is still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

5of19Season ticker holder Tim Leahy, left, is accompanied by Warriors legend Tim Harday, center and his son, Tyler, right as they go inside the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

6of19A placard stating the new seats were the first installed at the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility. Season ticket holder Tim Leahy was surprised with the chance to install his seats.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

7of19L-R, Warriors COO Rick Welts chats with Warriors legend Tim Hardaway, as season ticket holder Tim Leahy chats with Warriors Assistant director of ticket services in Leahy's new seats at the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warriors surprised Leahy with the chance to install his seats before the team will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

8of19Long-time NBA photographer Andy Bernstein chats with Lisa Goodwin, Golden State Warriors Senior Director, Corporate Communication at the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

9of19Warriors COO Rick Welts, second from left, points out parts of the arena to season ticket holder, Tim Leahy, right who was surprised with the chance to install his seats at the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

10of19The most recent Warriors NBA champsionship banner hangs at the new Chase Arena still under construction in San Francisco on Friday, Jan. 4, 2019. The Warrior will open their 2019-2020 season in the new facility.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

11of19Aerial view of where the Golden State Warriors proposed arena would have been located at Pier 30-32.Photo: Warriors/Snohetta/steelblue

12of19A public plaza backed by a restaurant will replace what had been a high staircase and an entrance to a parking garage on the northwest corner of Piers 30-32. A gently sloping walkway flanked by shops and restaurants would lead up to the arena. The parking garage entrance was moved mid block. The plan also calls for a fire station and water taxi dock on that corner of the site.Photo: Warriors/Snohetta/steelblue

13of19Hard-surfaced terraces facing south were replaced with sloping grass. The area would be part of 7.6 acres of public open space on the site.Photo: Warriors/Snohetta/steelblue

14of19The Warriors were planning on building their new stadium at piers 30/32 in San Francisco.Photo: Sonja Och, The Chronicle

15of19Seagulls congregate on Piers 30-32 in San Francisco. The site was preferred by the Golden State Warriors as a possible location for a new sports arena.Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

16of19 The development that the owners of the Golden State Warriors which had wanted to build on Piers 30-32. The large circle is the proposed 18,000 seat area. The block on the inland side of the Embarcadero would include a hotel and a residential mid-rise.Photo: courtesy Golden State Warriors

17of19Red's Java House would have been moved south on the Embarcadero to make room for the new Golden State Warriors arena at Piers 30-32. Image courtesy the Warriors.

18of19A rendition of the proposed Golden State Warriors arena at Piers 30-32. Courtesy the Golden State Warriors

19of19In this file photo, Lawrence Stokus stops to talk to a security guard at Piers 30-32 about the proposed Warriors arena in San Francisco. Stokus lives in the neighborhood and would rather see the land be used as a park.Photo: Sarah Rice, Special to The Chronicle

Seven things I learned from my visit to the Warriors’ new arena Friday:

•Warriors fans can forget about their New Year’s resolutions to drop 20 pounds and shrink two inches.

Many of the seats in Chase Center will be wider than the seats at Oracle, and all will have slightly more leg room than at Oracle. With all the dining and snacking opportunities that will be available inside and outside Chase, fans will have ample opportunity to grow into their larger seats.

•Also, forget exercise.

There are stairways at Chase, but also 19 escalators, which team president Rick Welts tells me is a world record for an arena. If the Chase escalators are like the ones at BART stations, one or two should be operational every game.

•The Warriors do not want you to forget they are building a new arena that will open next season.

The team staged a cute little publicity stunt Friday, bolting the first seats into place in the arena. Or, technically, they had the fan come in and bolt his own block of four seats into place, the first four seats to be installed.

The fan, Tim Healy, was chosen at random from a group of longtime fans. He has had Warriors’ season tickets since 1987, and before that his dad had tickets, way back when you couldn’t give ’em away, sometimes literally.

“If I offered tickets to friends, they would be jokingly offended,” said Healy, who has attended around 1,250 Warriors’ games.

His four seats at Chase are on the bottom row of the top deck.

“My seats at Oracle are on the very top row, my back is against the concrete, so this is a massive upgrade,” said Healy, who wore a No. 22 jersey honoring his favorite all-time Warrior. Who else but Sonny Parker?

The other 17,996 seat holders at Chase will not have to bolt their own seats to the concrete, so leave your power tools at home.

•Seriously, a Rick Barry bobblehead is buried in the concrete under where the North end free-throw line will be. Every time a player misses a free throw, he will hear Barry’s spectral voice saying, “Shoot it underhanded, you stubborn #@%ing idiot.”

•Nosebleeds will still be achievable.

Chase will hold about 18,000 fans, roughly 1,500 fewer than Oracle, but the highest seats at Chase are in the clouds. The Warriors led a small media tour of the catwalk above the court, which is about 10 stories above the arena floor, and the top seats are only about 10 feet below the catwalk.

•The Warriors have spent a lot of time figuring out how 18,000 fans will get into and out of the arena and the neighborhood, but nobody is sure exactly how that will play out in reality.

Chase is wedged into the booming Third Street corridor south of AT&T Park, with a shoehorn, surrounded by high-rise commercial and residential buildings.

Fans will arrive by car, foot, light rail, subway (which won’t be completed when the arena opens), bike, train, ferry and scooter. So far, no plans for a gondola.

•The Warriors’ crushing overtime loss to the Rockets on Thursday night did not seem to dampen the spirits of the hundreds of workers who swarmed the site Friday morning.

Maybe they are so busy staying on schedule that they don’t realize the Warriors have resembled a struggling .500 team. The players better figure it out soon, because clearly their new home is not built with mediocrity in mind.

Scott Ostler has been a sports columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle since 1991. He has covered five Olympics for The Chronicle, as well as one soccer World Cup and numerous World Series, Super Bowls and NBA Finals.

Though he started in sports and is there now, Scott took a couple of side trips into the real world for The Chronicle. For three years he wrote a daily around-town column, and for one year, while still in sports, he wrote a weekly humorous commentary column.

He has authored several books and written for many national publications. Scott has been voted California Sportswriter of the Year 13 times, including six times while at The Chronicle. He moved to the Bay Area from Southern California, where he worked for the Los Angeles Times, the National Sports Daily and the Long Beach Press-Telegram.